May . . . the farce be with you . . .

[Sweder]

When I run well I can write well. At least, I write well in my head as I run along.
On the odd occasion I manage to extrapolate some of this stuff before the letters fade from my mental blackboard; regular visitors here have on occasion remarked kindly on a tale or two.

Alas, dear reader tonight is no such time.
For instead of poetic prose or rhythmic ramblings I bring you a dirge, the epitaph of a man who thought he was a runner only to find that he is, in fact, a tub of lard. The velocity with which I have fallen from the pinnacle of four short weeks ago when I conquered the City of Love in a tearful triumph under the eponymous Arch is hard to fathom. Here in the City of the Obese, the Land of the Free (Refill), Home of the Brave (Enough to Finish their All You Can Eat Chicken Fried Steak) I am committed to a horrible, inexorable slide into sloth.

How can this happen, you may ask?
Oh, it’s oh so easy my friends. Andy of this parish has oft spoken of the terrible consequences of ale guzzling within striking distance of food emporia. So, forewarned is for-armed, n’est pas? Sadly not; as if in some belated response to the magnificent David Byrne I have simply Stopped Making Sense. Take last night for example. A visit to the Stags Head Pub on 59 and South Shepherd, home last evening to the Offshore Engineer magazine OTC 2006 party. Free beer for as long as it lasts, aided and abetted by equally priceless Mexican nibbles. A small river of draught Belhaven carried me (in a taxi) out of said boozer and straight into the clutches of the Jack In The Box Drive Thru whereupon I invested in not one but two Sourdough Jacks. SDJs are unrivalled examples of the Houstonian capacity to force acres of cow flesh (liberally laced with strips of bacon and slabs of Monterrey Jack cheese) between two lightly toasted slices of delicious sourdough bread. So at 1am this morning there I was, slumped in the back of a yellow cab heading home with a belly full of Scottish Ale and a torrent of burger grease cascading down my well lubricated throat (not to mention across my chin and onto one of my finest stripy shirts).

And now? Why this self-flagellation, this self-depreciating public weep-fest?
I’ve just completed a six-mile assault on the local Bayou path, taking me to the very edge of Downtown and the delightful haven that is Hermann Park.
And, to cut to the chase, it was the stuff of nightmares.
Not only did I stop to walk no less than six times in the seventy minutes it took to drag myself around this makeshift circuit, I suffered the embarrassment of having a fleet of alien craft follow me around, silently sucking the last vestige of oxygen from my personal airspace. I feel like an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill. I have gone irrevocably insane.
The horror . . . the horror . . .

I didn’t so much sweat as sprout liquid from every pore. The irony of my Marathon de Paris finisher’s shirt turning dark blue then translucent as I flogged my flabby carcass along the waters’ edge was not lost on me. One small consolation was that today, under much brighter conditions, I could identify the residents of the shallow creek; catfish and carp. The catfish, all bulbous heads and tail-wafting business, worked in lines of four or five, hoovering the silt from the Bayou bottom in search of food. The carp worked alone, trawling the edges, occasionally flicking the surface with their tail fins to send the catfish scampering off to more peaceful hunting grounds.

I slog/scraped my way towards the park as a fleet of sculpted runners passed in the opposite direction. Six-packs mingled with dry singlets, I-pods and MP3s standard issue, cadence at once strong and confident, perfect teeth shining beneath designer shades. As their light footfalls receded behind me dark shapes sheltering under the bridge shifted uneasily. This city of opulence and obscenity increasingly fails to hide its shady secrets. The tired, the poor, the huddled masses once called upon to journey to this great nation are now spurned by the wealthy, forced to scavenge like dogs along these giant urban gutters. Bright, shiny eyes peered out from weather-beaten, road-grimed faces. I moved a little quicker – but not much.

The contrast of this, the raw underbelly of Americas fourth largest conurbation, with the glorious beauty of BBs recent journeys into the Spanish mountains could not be greater. There are parallels, though. BB’s reports are filled with hope and wonder at the natural riches bestowed upon our plucky trail-blazer. There’s hope and wonder here, too; I hope I’ll get back to my apartment before I have a coronary, and I truly wonder if I will?

Another minute walk-break. I can’t believe this; I didn’t stop once in Paris. OK so I must expect hiccups after a few weeks off but this is ridiculous. I started again just as a tank-topped lovely flew by on a pushbike, her golden ponytail shining in the early evening sun as she powered her cycle along the warm asphalt towpath. The sun was of course a factor. Knocking on 7pm and we’re still easily in the high seventies. There seemed to be a little more 02 on offer and I started to find what felt like form, but it proved a false dawn and by the time I reached my exit point at Greenbriar I’d returned to a truculent, despairing waddle.

I muttered a hasty Faustian pact under my breath to make it back to the digs without further respite, huffing and puffing like Thomas the Tank Engine hauling a small house up Ben Nevis. Speaking of that particular peak I reckon all this reading Feet In The Clouds is adding to my feelings of self-loathing and corpulence. Tales of hard men flying over fells and dales with ankle-fitted wings have left me feeling further adrift than ever. I could write my own guide to self-destruction. Feet In The clouds? Head Up His Arse, more like. Glaconman generously doffed his shiny pate at my mastery of the yin and yang of running hard and living life to the full. Sorry to relate the scales have tipped my friend; it’s all gone a bit Jade Goody.

The challenges I’ve mentally prepared for later in the year – Seaford Half, the Jog Shop Jog, maybe even the New York Marathon – all seem much larger, darker milestones now.

Cape Town may as well be on another planet.